Hydrogen, Helium, Heat
by volitaire
Summary: While in orbit around a supernova, the Doctor makes a fatal miscalculation... Post 'Doomsday'.
1. Luck

-1"You know, I wouldn't worry…I wouldn't worry too much…I- I once stumbled across a spawn of Kroll- n-nasty, s-swampy, despicable creature…and t-the thing had seven hearts, can you believe it? Seven. And, all that mucus…c-covered in sludge, you'da thought he'd have already… d-died of his own stink, right putrid, that one. But no…oh no. It was me…s-seven hearts and I stopped 'em all. One…t-two…three…four…five…six…-"

The Doctor rolls over lazily onto his back. A networking of blue veins, fragile and pronounced, trickle down from his cheekbones and disappear beneath the slant of his shirt collar. He lifts his neck to see Martha, who- by now, he assumes- has lost consciousness. His jugular throbs desperately.

"…Seven." He feigns a smirk, but it's a lousy attempt. Wincing, suddenly his head seems too heavy to maintain. It pivots comically about his neck, until he resorts to mashing his face into the tabletop. He pauses to asphyxiate a bit, panting quietly, throwing his arms up over his face. He doesn't want Martha to see him grimace…that is _if _she was awake, of course- awake and cognizant enough to be reading his facial expressions…hell, she might be in more trouble than he was over there- and wincing generally seemed like a cop-out, and not at all thoughtful or polite… if he had strength enough to wince at her, he could at least harness some of that energy to sputter something reassuring, perhaps scoot over and revive her…smile…the gentlemanly thing to do would be, well, anything but writhe pitifully like a blasted worm.

"Oh dear-" He sighs.

His body goes rigid and he kicks his leg out at an odd angle- the cramps- the pain- the spasms were so extreme…too frequent now to play suave… he wasn't going to pretend to be all right, that was just foolish. So the Kroll had seven hearts, whoop-de-doo…he had five less, and he was the Doctor- for heaven's sake! And he wasn't even sure if both of them were functioning…not properly, anyway…that was impossible- he wouldn't be having this aneurism…uhh, one and a half hearts in perfect working order!…so…five and a half more than a wretched swamp dweller…? Yeah, if he was lucky…

At least he could still do arithmetic. …Math was objective. Luck was a superstition…but he'd long since substantiated a reliable trust in good fortune. Sure, he was lucky…wasn't he? Seven was a lucky number, maybe that counted for something…well, not for the Kroll…he'd blasted him to bits-

The Doctor chuckles to himself- a triumph of a millennia ago is a trifling consolation.

"But…laughter is supposed to be good for the heart, er- both… hearts..." He complains in a low whisper. His breath flutters the crinkly white carbon paper lining the table. It'd be tasteless and almost redundant to note that they were being held hostage in a doctor's office…what an odd place for a kidnapping… How…well, tasteless and redundant? What a stupid conundrum. If he wasn't so focused on the agonizing contractions shooting through the left side of his body, maybe he could find more humor in all this.

Besides, this required rational thought, concentration, stamina…wait, now what had he been thinking about?

Ah- luck.

At the back of his woozy brain he guaranteed himself some sort of out. But Martha? Maybe now was the time for that chivalry…

He tries turning sideways to let some of his luck rub off on poor Martha…what he really feels like doing is cocooning up in this carbon paper and hitting the deep six…no…no…

…regenerating, possibly? Nah…too soon for that…everything's peachy…one and a half hearts…one heart…one laboriously beating heart pounding-EXPLODING in his ears- for the love of Gallifrey MAKE IT STOP-

NO.

No, stopping heart? Come on now Doctor, I thought the concurrence here was _rational _thought…?

The Doctor digs his nails into his thigh and seethes through another spasm. He'd make it through this- they both would…it was sort of his _duty _to-

…He couldn't die…he had much better things to do…like…roll up in the disinfectant paper, snug as a bug in a rug. Wrap himself out of sight, sleep, smother the whirling neon spots zinging past the insides of his eyelids…_smother_? No, bad choice of words- very dismal, suffocation, no fun, not now, not ever- was he hallucinating? Psychedelic, man…very trippy, very bright, very, um-_nauseating_-

Whatever dignity he had coursing through his malfunctioning veins disintegrated in the few short seconds it took to vomit over the side of the table. He couldn't hear it hit the shiny linoleum floor- he was too preoccupied with trying to jumpstart the bum side of his body. It was completely without sensation, the heartbeat in that ear had ceased to annoy him- or conceivably, that ear had ceased to channel sound…

…Whichever…

He tries flexing his left arm- strains to make a fist and offsets another contraction that makes his entire body feel like a lightning rod on the fritz. He convulses what feels like a foot off the table, shuddering sideways into Martha's stock-still frame. His hand flops into the back of her head and he can feel- faintly- that some receptors are still firing at the tips of his fingers… unless he's grown a phantom limb. His pointer and ring finger are entwined in her ponytail. He gets a schoolboy-ish urge to yank it- yank her awake…but alas, he's inert.

"Oh, bother." He moans out of the rubbery right corner of his mouth. His left eyelid prickles and closes involuntarily. He makes a great effort to tighten his unwieldy grip on Martha's ponytail. The dying nerve endings are a faulty lifeline.

The Doctor slides his hand across his upper body, checking for pressure points, trying to decipher the exact spot where he cannot feel anything. He grazes the buttons of his suit coat, the rough polyester overly sensitized under his fingers- maybe, just maybe….if he beat his chest with enough force he could act as his own defribulator…

He lifts his shaking arm between tremors, hovering it over his face, taking short, contrived breaths to gather any and all kinetic energy.

…This had better work…

He brings it down hard and fast.

He does not hit his torso.

Instead, the side of his palm nicks something metal- ricochets off something small and cylindrical, rebounding with such force that his chest crackles with pain.

No- not a rebound. A direct hit. Like a nail to a hammer, the Doctor had succeeded in driving his own Sonic Screwdriver three inches into his flesh. Lightning exudes across his ribcage, the numbness in his body now a vibrant conductor.

Slowly the carbon paper beneath him creeps towards the lip of the table, the corners curling and blackening as the doctor feeds lightning heat onto the slab.

He totters, literally and figuratively shocked.

The paper unravels and he crashes to the floor, facedown, motionless…

…Luck…he thinks…what had I been saying about luck?


	2. Cold

The floor was cold. Hard. Flat. As most floors are.

Rolling was agony.

Therefore, movement was impossible.

He wasn't dead- which, he thought- should also be impossible, but he was too close to unconsciousness for death.

But he could compensate, right?

The room was on fire- he was on fire, and feverish, and disoriented- no- technically he still knew where he was- but his ability to see dithered and warped- his optic nerves eradicated by the opaque blanket of electricity and smoke. The world washed out between lovely shades of royal purple, and suddenly- Rose was there.

Beside him, the examining table was aflame, melting with a ferocity. Martha Jones was not breathing. Severe and fatal oxidation was taking place. The left side of his body had hemorrhaged. His left heart over-palpitated and stopped. His eyesight was botched. The rubber soles of his sneakers were liquefying, as was the floor, which no longer as cold. Or hard. Or flat. The whole room was burning and turning to soup. They were trapped. _He _was trapped.

The Doctor giggled; an insane and girlish giggle that was scarfed up into the sizzle and combustion of the ambient oxygen molecules.

"Oh Rose Tyler, you'd better get out of here."

It was necessary to scold her.

Because he knew she wouldn't budge, not an inch.

"…Not an inch..." He said flatly, aloud.

She stood at his feet. His eyes weren't open but he could see her.

He could _feel _her way down to his very core, and his body shook with excitement, every cell. She was here, she was _here, _but she was cold.

…Where Rose was it was cold.

Her gloveless hands trembled as she tucked them into her sleeves, balling them into fists- her knuckles raw and pink with frostbite. Winter wind whipped strands of her hair every which way, lashing against her ruddy cheeks, teeth chattering, lips chapped and tinged with blue, eyes watering, shoving her shoulders up to her jawline, hugging herself, freezing…trapped.

"Rose, come _here_, it's _warm _here." The Doctor whispers, slapping at the sweat pouring down his face. "…Please?"

"It isn't fair." The Doctor tells her. "If I'm going to hallucinate, you could at least listen to me."

Flames beat at the doorway, tongue the eaves, grow against the spackled ceiling.

"Either way," he pauses to watch Rose shiver and wonders what it's like to be cold, "I'm very glad you're here.'

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Rose Tyler stands at her bedroom window, shivering.

Its glass had broken- shattered inward with an unfathomable force. The curtain rod ripped right out of the wall, smattered plaster billowing about in the cutting wind- leaves, debris, papers, dirt from outside all suctioned upward and in a cyclone.

People are screaming.

It echoes for blocks.

Ice crystals form on the windowsill, frost dances across her bedroom walls, engraves itself into her skin with every gust.

The foundations of the apartment rumble and strain to right themselves.

Rose stumbles and holds fast to her bookcase, staring, rapt, into a black sky.

…It is ten thirty in the morning.


End file.
